Title page of the 1602 quarto

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare featuring the fat knight Sir John Falstaff and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary English life. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (505x836, 252 KB)Title page of the first quarto of The Merry Wives of Windsor The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (505x836, 252 KB)Title page of the first quarto of The Merry Wives of Windsor The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright... Quarto has several meanings: In bookbinding and publishing, quarto indicates the book size which results when four leaves of the book are created from a standard size sheet of paper. ... A comedy is a dramatic performance of a light and amusing character, usually with a happy conclusion to its plot. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Adolf Schrödter: Falstaff and his page Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare as a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vainglorious, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, but he...

Sources

Some elements of The Merry Wives of Windsor may have been adapted from Il Pecerone, a collection of stories by Ser Giovanni; one of these stories was included in William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure.^[1] William Painter (1540?-1594), English author, was a native of Kent. ...

Date and text

The play's date of composition is unknown; it was registered for publication in 1602, but was probably several years old by that date. Textual allusions to the Order of the Garter suggest that the play may have been intended for performance in April 1597, prior to the installation in May of the Knights-Elect of that order at Windsor; if so, it was probably performed when Elizabeth I attended Garter Feast on April 23rd. This was not necessarily the premiere; presumably, the play was also staged at the public theatre. This page is about the year. ... The insignia of a knight of the Order of the Garter. ... For other uses, see: 1597 (number). ... This article is about the English town. ... This article is about Elizabeth I of England. ... is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Garter theory is only speculation, but it is corroborated by a story first recorded by John Dennis in 1702: that Shakespeare was commanded to write the play by Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to see Falstaff in love (that such a story was first recorded one hundred years later -- in the same year in which Dennis had made an adaption of Merry Wives -- makes it suspect.) John Dennis (1657 - January 6, 1734), English critic and dramatist, the son of a saddler, was born in London. ... Events March 8 - William III died; Princess Anne Stuart becomes Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland. ... Adolf Schrödter: Falstaff and his page Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare as a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vainglorious, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, but he...

However, support for this theory is divided. If the Garter theory is correct, it would mean that Shakespeare wrote 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' between King Henry IV part 1 and part 2. Critics have trouble believing this because of all the inconsistencies that appear between the Henry plays and 'The Merry Wives'. For example, there are no references to any of the major events going on at the time such as the rebellion (Henry IV part 1), or the English invasion of France (Henry IV part 2). Also there are many character inconsistancies, and loose ends in the play which supports the theory that Queen Elizabeth request Shakespeare write that play, but seems to indicate it was written after Henry V.

January 18, 1602 was the date the play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company. The first quarto was published later that year, in an inferior text, by bookseller Arthur Johnson. It was published in a second quarto in 1619, as part of William Jaggard's False Folio; the superior First Folio text followed in 1623. is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Stationers Register was a journal maintained by the Stationers Company of London. ... The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. ... The size of a specific book is measured from the head to tail of the spine, and from edge to edge across the covers. ... Second quarto is a bibliographic term, most often encountered in the study of English literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in regard to the early printings of the plays of English Renaissance theatre. ... False Folio is the term that Shakespeare scholars and bibliographers have applied to the earliest attempt to create a collection of Shakepearean works in a single volume, that being William Jaggards printing of ten Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean plays together in 1619. ... The title page of the First Folio with the famous engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout The First Folio is the name given by modern scholars to the first published collection of William Shakespeares plays; its actual title is Mr. ...

The title page of Q1 states that the play was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, "Both before Her Majesty, and elsewhere." The earliest performance known with certainty occurred on Nov. 4, 1604, at Whitehall Palace. Another known performance took place on Nov. 15, 1638, at the Cockpit Theatre. The Lord Chamberlains Men was the playing company that William Shakespeare worked for as actor and playwright for most of his career. ... The Palace of Whitehall was the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698 when all except Inigo Jones 1622 Banqueting House was destroyed by fire. ... These plans, drawn by Inigo Jones probably around 1616 to 1618, may be for the Cockpit Theatre. ...

The play alludes to a German duke, who is generally thought to be Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg, who had visited England in 1592 and was elected to the Order of the Garter in 1597 (and who was eventually only installed in Stuttgart on November 6, 1603). Friedich I, Herzog von Württemberg (19 August 1557-29 January 1608) was the son of Georg von Mömpelgard and his wife Barbara von Hessen. ... For other uses, see Stuttgart (disambiguation). ... is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1603 (MDCIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ...

There is an indication that Falstaff in Merry Wives was originally called Sir John Oldcastle, as was true of Falstaff in the Henry IV plays. See: Sir John Oldcastle. Sir John Oldcastle is an Elizabethan play about John Oldcastle, a controversial 14th-15th century rebel and Lollard who was seen by some of Shakespeares contemporaries as a proto-Protestant martyr. ...

Performance

Merry Wives was one of the first Shakespearean plays to be performed once the theatres re-opened in 1660 after the Interregnum. Samuel Pepys saw the King's Company act it on Dec. 6, 1660, and again in 1661 and 1667 (though he didn't like it, anytime). In 1702 John Dennis offered an adaptation (it has been called a "perversion") of the play, titled The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff — which flopped. In 1824 Frederick Reynolds included Merry Wives in his series of operatic adaptations, with music by Henry Bishop. Charles Kean returned to Shakespeare's text in an 1851 production.^[2] The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule in the land occupied by modern-day England and Wales after the English Civil War. ... Samuel Pepys, FRS (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for his diary. ... The Kings Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. ... Sir Henry Bishop was the composer of the melody of Home! Sweet Home!. Categories: Composers stubs ... Charles John Kean (January 18, 1811 - January 22, 1868), was born at Waterford, Ireland, the son of the actor Edmund Kean. ...

During the period of anti-German feelings in England during World War I, many German names and titles were changed and given more English-sounding names, including the royal family's from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. Kaiser Wilhelm II countered this by jokingly saying that he was off to see a performance of 'The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.' “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) was once the name given to the two German duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha in Germany, in the present states of Bavaria and Thuringia, which were in personal union between 1826 and 1918. ... This article is about the English town. ... German Emperor Wilhelm (born Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht, Prince of Prussia 27 January 1859–4 June 1941), was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia (de: Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen), ruling from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. ...

Characters

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
BARDOLPH, PISTOL, NYM, Followers of Falstaff.
ROBIN, Page to Falstaff.
FORD, PAGE, two Gentlemen dwelling at Windsor.
WILLIAM PAGE, a Boy, Son to Page.
SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh Parson.
DOCTOR CAIUS, a French Physician.
RUGBY, Servant to Doctor Caius.
MISTRESS QUICKLY, Servant to Doctor Caius.
SHALLOW, a Country Justice.
SLENDER, Cousin to Shallow.
SIMPLE, Servant to Slender.
FENTON, a young Gentleman.
HOST of the Garter Inn.

MISTRESS FORD.
MISTRESS PAGE.
ANNE PAGE, her Daughter, in love with Fenton.

Synopsis

The play anachronistically places Sir John Falstaff, who had previously appeared in Shakespeare's plays about the medieval King Henry IV, in the contemporary setting of the Elizabethan era. Henry IV (3 April 1367 – 20 March 1413) was the King of England and France and Lord of Ireland from 1399 to 1413. ... Elizabethan redirects here. ...

Falstaff arrives in Windsor very short on money. He decides, to obtain financial advantage, that he will court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters, and asks his servants – Pistol and Nym – to deliver them to the wives. When they refuse Falstaff sacks them, and in revenge the men tell Ford and Page (the Husbands) of Falstaff's intentions. Page is not concerned, but the jealous Ford persuades the Host of the Garter to introduce him to Falstaff as Master Brook so that he can find out Falstaff's plans.

Meanwhile, three different men are trying to win the hand of Page's daughter, Mistress Anne Page. Mistress Page would like her daughter to marry Doctor Caius, a French physician, whereas the girl's father would like her to marry Master Slender. Anne herself is in love with Master Fenton, but Page had previously rejected Fenton as a suitor due to his having squandered his considerable fortune on high-class living. Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, tries to enlist the help of Mistress Quickly (servant to Doctor Caius) in wooing Anne for Slender, but the doctor discovers this and challenges Evans to a duel. The Host of the Garter prevents this duel by telling both men a different meeting place, causing much amusement for himself, Justice Shallow, Page, and others. Evans and Caius decide to work together to be revenged on the Host.

When the women receive the letters, each goes to tell the other, and they quickly find that the letters are almost identical. The "merry wives" are not interested in the aging, overweight Falstaff as a suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement, and to gain revenge for his indecent assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances.

This all results in great embarrassment for Falstaff. "Brook" says he is in love with Mistress Ford but cannot woo her as she is too virtuous. He offers to pay Falstaff to court her, saying that once she has lost her honour he will be able to tempt her himself. Falstaff cannot believe his luck, and tells "Brook" he has already arranged to meet Mistress Ford while her husband is out. Falstaff leaves to keep his appointment and Ford soliloquies that he is right to suspect his wife and that the trusting Page is a fool.

When Falstaff arrives to meet Mistress Ford, the merry wives trick him into hiding in a laundry basket ("buck basket") full of filthy clothes. When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents (including Falstaff) dumped into the river. Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just "playing hard to get" with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail.

Again Falstaff goes to meet the women, but Mistress Page comes back and warns Mistress Ford of her husband's approach again. They try to think of ways to hide him other than the laundry basket which he refuses to get into again. They trick him again, this time into disguising himself as Mistress Ford's maid's fat aunt, the fat woman of Brentford. Ford tries once again to catch his wife with the knight, but ends up beating the "old woman," who he despises, and throwing her out of his house. Black and blue, Falstaff laments his bad luck.

Eventually, the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the whole town. They tell Falstaff to dress as "Herne, the Hunter" and meet them by an old oak tree in Windsor Forest. They then dress several of the local children, including Anne and William Page, as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him. Page plots to dress Anne in white and tells Slender to steal her away and marry her during the revels. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius arrange to do the same, but they arrange Anne shall be dressed in green. Anne tells Fenton this, and he and the Host arrange for Anne and Fenton to be married instead.

The wives meet Falstaff, and almost immediately the "fairies" attack! Slender, Caius, and Fenton steal away their brides-to-be during the chaos, and the rest of the characters reveal their true identities to Falstaff.

Although he is embarrassed, Falstaff takes the joke surprisingly well, as he sees it was what he deserved. Ford says he must pay back the 20 pounds "Brook" gave him and takes the Knight's horses as recompense. Slender suddenly appears and says he has been deceived – the "girl" he took away to marry was not Anne, but a young boy. Caius arrives with similar news – however, he has actually married his boy! Fenton and Anne arrive and admit that they love each other and have been married. Fenton chides the parents for trying to force Anne to marry men she did not love and the parents accept the marriage and congratulate the young pair. Eventually they all leave together, and Mistress Page even invites Falstaff to come with them. "let us every one go home, and laugh at this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all".

Themes

Key themes of Merry Wives include love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, class and wealth. Explored with irony, sexual innuendo, sarcasm, and stereotypical views of classes and nationalities, these themes help to give the play something closer to a modern-day view than is often found in Shakespeare's plays. Image File history File links Ambox_emblem_question. ...

The play is centered around the class prejudices of middle-class England. The lower class is represented by characters such as Bardolph, Pistol and Nim (Falstaff's followers), and the upper class is represented by Sir John Falstaff and Master Fenton. Shakespeare uses both Latin and misused English to represent the attitudes and differences of the people of this era. Much of the comedic effect of the play is derived from misunderstandings between characters. Shakespeare redirects here. ...

Another prominent Elizabethan theme that runs through the play is the idea of the cuckold. Elizabethans found the idea of a woman cheating on her husband absolutely hilarious and seem to have assumed that if a man was married, his wife was cheating on him. Because a cuckolded husband was said to "wear horns," any reference, no matter how oblique, to horns or a horned animal (for example, the "buck" basket where Falstaff finds himself) probably brought down the house.

Criticism

Most critics consider Merry Wives to be one of Shakespeare's weaker plays, and the Falstaff of Merry Wives to be much inferior to the Falstaff of the two Henry IV plays. That Shakespeare would so stumble with one of his greatest creations is puzzling, and a satisfactory reason for this remains to be found. The likeliest explanation, if the Garter Feast theory is accepted, is that the play was written hastily, to order for a special occasion, within severe time restraints.

It has also been said that Shakespeare was one of Queen Elizabeth's favorite playwrights and that she so enjoyed the Buffoon Falstaff that she personally requested that Shakespeare write an entire Comedy surrounding Falstaff. This would explain the powerful female characters as a nod to the queen and grand slapstick comedy surrounding Falstaff's mishaps in the play.

Adaptations and cultural references

• The play was revised and adapted by John Dennis in 1702 as The Comical Gallant.
• Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito, is based on the play, although, as with most operas adapted from the theatre, there are significant differences as to characters and plot.
• The composer Antonio Salieri wrote the opera buffa Falstaff (1799), with a libretto by Carlo Prospers Defranchesi, which also adapts the main story line of The Merry Wives of Windsor for the operatic stage.
• The German composer Carl Otto Nicolai wrote an opera based on the comedy in 1849, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor.
• The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote Sir John in Love, an opera based on this play in the years 1924-28.

John Dennis (1657 - January 6, 1734), English critic and dramatist, the son of a saddler, was born in London. ... “Verdi” redirects here. ... For other uses, see Opera (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Falstaff (disambiguation). ... Arrigo Boito (February 24, 1842 – June 10, 1918) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his opera libretti and his own opera, Mefistofele. ... Antonio Salieri Antonio Salieri (August 18, 1750 – May 7, 1825), was an Italian composer and conductor. ... Opera buffa (a form of comic opera), also known as Commedia in musica or Commedia per musica, is a genre of opera. ... Falstaff, ossia Le tre burle (Falstaff, or The Three Jokes) is a dramma giocoso in two acts by Antonio Salieri, set to a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi after William Shakespeares The Merry Wives of Windsor. ... 1799 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Carl Otto Nicolai (June 9, 1810 - May 11, 1849) was a German composer and conductor. ... Year 1849 (MDCCCXLIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The Merry Wives of Windsor (in German: Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) is an opera in three acts by Carl Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Salomon Hermann von Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare. ... A statue of Ralph Vaughan Williams in Dorking. ...

Note

1. ^ Van Santvoord, George, editor, The Merry Wives of Windsor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922): 119.
2. ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 314.

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